McQueen Family Suing Ferrari over Unauthorized Use of Steve

For a certain subset of the automotively obsessed, brown cars hold a certain allure. It’s a rich yet unpretentious hue that those who enjoy vehicles on the brighter end of the spectrum dismiss as being too derivative of soil or, worse, of excrement. If you are known to prefer brown, and somebody partial to silver or red hopes to curry favor with you, the first thing out of that person’s mouth will invariably be, “Did you know Steve McQueen had a brown Ferrari Lusso?” But what was once an annoyance to a handful of contrarian nerds who cared enough to lift the color of ’70s Sansabelt trousers to cult car-color status has now become a legal issue between Ferrari and the family of the late actor. Right about now, we imagine Ferrari wishes it had never heard of the American actor.

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A couple of years back, Maranello updated its four-place shooting brake, dubbing the successor to the FF the GTC4Lusso. At right around the same time, to mark the occasion of the company’s 70th anniversary in 2017, Ferrari decided to come up with 70 historic color schemes from both road and track and apply each of them to one example of each of the company’s five models. Given that McQueen’s famous Ferrari bore the Lusso moniker, it was a no-brainer to showcase the brown paint job on a new GTC4. Which, perhaps deciding the move would be a bit too much like thumbing their noses at the McQueens, Ferrari did not do.

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Instead, the brown paint bowed at the 2016 Paris auto show applied to a California T, alongside liveries that paid tribute to David Piper’s green 365 P2 racer, Michael Schumacher’s championship-winning F2003 GA, and the 250GT SWB in which Sir Stirling Moss won the 1961 Tourist Trophy at Goodwood. Ferrari called the tribute to Piper’s car “The Green Jewel,” named the V-10–era F1 car’s livery “The Schumacher,” and dubbed the Moss tribute color scheme “The Stirling.” In line with those names, calling the brown car “The McQueen” seemed to make perfect sense. Other famous Ferrari owners, drivers, events, and automobiles had received similar treatments.

The 70 liveries included, for example, a color package called “The Ingrid,” which draws inspiration from the 375MM commissioned by Roberto Rossellini for his wife, Ingrid Bergman. A red-and-white color scheme with tricolore accent stripes evokes the 312T F1 cars campaigned by the Scuderia during the 1975 constructors’ championship–winning season. The treatment was simply called “The Lauda” in honor of the Austrian driver’s first world championship. Blue was chosen to commemorate the Ferrari Daytona, and based on the photo chosen by Ferrari to illustrate the beauty of the 365GTB/4, it seems as if Kirk F. White’s old car—the very Daytona driven by Dan Gurney and our own Brock Yates to victory in the 1971 Cannonball Baker Sea-to-Shining-Sea Memorial Trophy Dash—was its nominal inspiration.

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According to Courthouse News Service, heir Chad McQueen visited Maranello in 2011 to discuss some sort of McQueen special-edition automobile, “provided he and his family would maintain approval rights and involvement in the project.” Whether Ferrari figured that the color scheme and name stood as a tribute that didn’t require family approval is unclear, but the McQueens maintain that they had no idea the cars were coming until they were announced. In response to their protest, Ferrari simply changed the name of the brown package to “The Actor.”

Despite the change, the McQueens reportedly remain upset that Ferrari continues to use Steve’s name in marketing materials, which make a point of mentioning the aforementioned 250GT Berlinetta Lusso. The McQueen family, cognizant of the automatic price premium an association with the actor confers on objects for sale, is seeking a statutory demand of $2 million per violation of registered trademark, plus punitive damages.

We suppose if this doesn’t shake out in Maranello’s favor, instead of letting five cars named “The Actor” live in this world, Ferrari could go all out and demand that buyers of “The Actor” accept black replacements with torquey Chevy V-8s in place of the traditional high-winding Italian plant. Who among those of us who became aware of Ferrari’s mythos during the 1980s wouldn’t want an F12berlinetta McBurnie? It’s a snowball-into-the-sun long shot, but who knows? The proud, defiant Prancing Horse might even come around. It has, after all, offered a run of red-over-camel Magnum, P.I. cars.